Ralph Eugene Meatyard first began taking pictures in 1950 when he purchased a Rolleiflex for the primary purpose of photographing his son Michael. He continued to work and experiment with these types of medium-format cameras for there rest of his life. Due to the technology available during his life, his photographs are black and white prints, generally just on paper. Meatyard was an optician by trade and photography was never his primary career but the company he worked for dealt with a lot of photographic equipment as well so he was familiar with the medium before he started making his own work.
Meatyard grew up in Normal, Illinois but spent most of his adult life in Kentucky. This rural, southern influence can be seen in almost all of his work, as well as his desire to document his and neighboring families. Often he would take photos of his family in abandoned barnhouses during family outings they were already going on. Meatyard worked outside of the typical art world conventions at the time. This was primarily because he was untrained, but also because the work he was doing was so unlike what was happening elsewhere. He began to incorporate masks and other methods of facial obscuring later in his career as another way to create narrative. He used his children and the masks as a way to look at surface identity.
I've always been attracted to the nature of Meatyard's work, especially considering the time that it was created in. These types of surreal, or "fantasy" photos are so prevalent now that we are not really phased by anything. Meatyard used simple tactics and the elements around him to create photos that still provide him with recognition today. Meatyard had a unique aesthetic voice. It doesn't feel to creepy or like they're trying to hard because most are just beautiful, natural photographs.
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